I thought it would be useful to have a master post answering common rules-related questions and topics. Please post if you want something adding to the list or you spot any mistakes.
There are 3 categories:
- Main Rules (this post)
- Ability, Campaign, & Card Specific Rules (abilities on upgrade and squadron cards, and Corellian Conflict)
- Useful Links (various Armada related links)
PLEASE DO NOT POST UNANSWERED QUESTIONS HERE, ONLY ANSWERS OR LINKS TO COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ON THESE FORUMS. THANKS.
Main Rules
This section covers the generic rules, see the next section for abilities found on upgrades and squadron cards.
Full Attack Summary
See this thread for summary of attacking, including defense tokens & crits: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/181567-do-you-have-questions-about-attacking-defense-tokens-and-critical-hits-read-this-first/
Accuracy
See also Attack Timing .
Accuracy icons work against ships and squadrons. However, only unique squadrons have defense tokens, so accuracy is only useful against those named squadrons (and essential in taking down those with the Scatter token, such as Howlrunner).
Spend Accuracy is part if the Resolve Attack Effects step of an attack. So, for example, if a re-roll from Evade defense token comes up accuracy, that accuracy icon CANNOT be used as the Spend Defense Tokens step occurs AFTER Spend Accuracy.
Anti-squadron Attacks
When you perform an anti-squadron attack from a ship, you make a separate roll against each enemy squadron in the attacking ship's firing arc. You use your anti-squadron armament dice - for ships this also determines what range(s) you can fire at using the range side of the ruler, but squadrons can only attack at distance 1.
Rules Reference: Attack (page 2) and related topics.
Concentrate Fire : This gives you ONE extra die to ONE attack roll, regardless of how many rolls you make in a single attack (Rules Reference: page 4).
Attack Timing
1. Declare & check target (see Targeting ).
2. Attacker rolls all applicable dice for the current range to target (see Attack Dice ).
3. Attacker modifies dice by turning and/or re-rolling as applicable to their abilities (see Attack Dice ). For each accuracy icon rolled the attacker chooses one of the defender's defense tokens; those tokens cannot be used during this attack. Note this applies when attacking squadrons as well as ships.
4. The defender may assign any number of their defense tokens (except those targeted by accuracy icons as described in step 3), but only 1 of each type can be used per attack.
Note that Evade is resolved immediately, but Brace and Redirect are resolved during the damage dealing step (step 5 below). Also note that Brace halves the damage total, it does not modify any of the dice.
5a. If the attacker and defender are both ships (or a squadron with Bomber is attacking a ship) and there are one or more crit icons remaining in attack dice results, the attacker may resolve ONE critical effect (see Critical Hits ).
5b. The defender suffers damage equal to the total number hit icons. If the attacker and defender are both ships (or a squadron with Bomber is attacking a ship), the damage total also includes ALL crit icons.
6. If the attacker is a ship and the defender is a squadron, the attacker may choose another enemy squadron to shoot that is in the same firing arc and that has not already been targeted during this attack.
Rules Reference: Attack (page 2).
Timing : You can use command tokens at any time you could normally use the corresponding command dial:
- Squadron & Engineering: Resolve when dial revealed.
- Concentrate Fire: Resolve during ONE attack. Note that when firing at multiple squadrons, you only add the extra die to ONE attack roll.
- Navigate: Resolve during the "Determine Course" step of movement.
Combining with dial : If you want to use a token that matches the dial you revealed this activation you must use them at the same time. This combines the the effects of the dial and token (e.g. A VSD would get 6 engineering points if it used an Engineering token and dial at the same time). When doing this with Concentrate Fire the extra die and reroll must be applied to the same attack roll.
Multiple tokens : You can use any number of command tokens in a single activation, but you cannot use the same command more than once per activation. Combining a token with a matching dial counts as one use of that command.
Rules Reference: Command Tokens and Commands (page 3).
Critical Hits
See also Attack Timing, Defense Tokens
- You can only resolve ONE critical effect per attack! (regardless of how many crits you roll, unless you have an upgrade or ability that specifically allows you to resolve additional critical effects such as Fire Control Teams)
- Only ships can suffer critical hits, and only ships and Bomber squadrons can deal critical effects.
- The critical icons on the attack dice count as damage and will additionally deal ONE critical effect (and only one). The critical effect is in ADDITION to the damage (i.e. the crit die remains in the attack pool unless otherwise specified) and the effect occurs at the start of the resolve damage step (i.e. after accuracy and defense tokens have been resolved). e.g. if you roll 2 hits and 2 crits, you deal 4 damage and can resolve 1 crit effect.
- All ships and Bombers have a default critical effect that allows them to deal the first damage card face-up (if all damage is soaked by shields then no damage cards are dealt). Some upgrades provide additional critical effects, one of these can be used INSTEAD of the default effect if you roll at least 1 crit icon.
- Damage that is suffered from critical effects does not count towards the "First 'x' damage cards face-up".
- Squadrons : Ignore the crit icon when attacking with squadrons unless they are attacking ships and have the Bomber ability. Squadrons with Bomber have the standard critical effect available to them (first damage card is dealt face-up).
Rules Reference: Critical Effects (page 4).
Defense Tokens
See also Attack Timing (step 4) .
If your ship's speed dial is Speed 0 (not including temporary speed changes due to overlapping), you CANNOT use defense tokens.
Brace : This halves the total damage dealt (round up) but it does NOT remove or change the dice (i.e. it can't 'remove' crits).
Evade : If using evade to force a re-roll and an accuracy is rolled, the player CANNOT use that accuracy result because that step of the attack process occurs before the use of defense tokens (see Attack Timing ).
Rules Reference: Defense Tokens (page 4).
Deployment
Ships cannot overlap when deploying them.
Dice
See Attack Dice
Distance and Range
See also Targeting
It is important not to confuse these two. The ruler has two sides: Range and Distance.
The Range side has three sections, close range, medium range and long range - each range shows what attack dice can be used at that range. It is primarily used to measure the range of ship armaments, but some effects also use it too.
The Distance side has five sections number 1-5 which are primarily used to measure squadron attacks and movement. All squadrons have an attack range of Distance 1, and they are also 'engaged' at this distance.
Rules Reference: Range and Distance (page 9).
Setup
See Deployment
Ship Speed
When you deploy a ship you set its initial speed to any speed on that ship's speed chart (note that speed 0 is not on the charts so you cannot deploy at 0).
You can change your ship's speed with the Navigate command and/or command token.
Speed 0 : Note that when a ship's speed dial is at speed 0, your ship cannot use defense tokens and is considered to have performed a maneuver (i.e. for the purpose of overlapping obstacles and similar mechanics). When temporarily reducing your speed due to collision/overlapping, you do not change the speed dial, therefore you can still use your defense tokens.
Rules Reference: Command Tokens and Commands (page 3), Setup (page 10).
Targeting
When attacking you declare which hull zone you are firing from and which hull zone on the enemy ship you are attacking.
The target must be within the firing arc AND in line of sight AND in range . These are three separate conditions but the range measurement must be within the firing arc.
Please see this thread for easy to follow diagrams (now updated as per errata).
Also, bear in mind the plastic part of the ship bases as follows:
QuoteThe plastic base (excluding the shield dial frames) does block line-of-sight and is used when measuring for a non-attack measurement (such as for a card effect that requires another ship be at distance 1–3). Attack measurement is the special case because the specific hull zones matter; during attack measurement, you must measure to and from the ship tokens.
Squadrons
- Squadrons do not have hull zones, so it does not need to be specified when attacking / being attacked.
- Squadrons have a 360 degree firing arc.
- Squadrons can only attack at distance 1 (measure from the closest part of the squadron base to the closest part of the target hull zone / squadron base).
Rules Reference: Attack (page 2) and related topics, official FAQ.
Pretty sure that was the only one - I can't see any other discrepancies.
